Eloquence and the Heart, Part 2

“How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34)

In the first part, we saw how eloquence can have a place in Biblical preaching only when it takes the role of servant not master. The master is the Bible. Any form of eloquence that will hinder the message is must be done with. Any form of eloquence that will hone the Biblical message can be used for the glory of God and the benefit of God’s people. Now we turn to the important truth that the seat of eloquence is the heart.

Too often when the word “eloquence” is mentioned we think first of the gift, the skill, the art, the tongue, the will and the mental abilities. However, the truth that Jesus binds speech primarily to the heart should inform all our thinking about God glorifying eloquence.

William Perkins penned, “Gracious speech expresses the grace of the heart.”[1] It is not a surprise then that when people heard Jesus, they said “no one ever spoke like this man!” (Jh. 7:46; cf. Lk. 4:22). Jesus was the most eloquent man who ever lived because He owned the purest heart ever existed.

If the main telos of preaching is not merely to deliver information, but to seek the transformation of the hearers, then the preacher’s heart must be first transformed by the content he preaches.[2] In other words, if the goal of preaching is “to bring people face to face with the living God”[3] then the preacher’s heart must experience this encounter first. It is this transformed heart that is filled with the reality of God’s character and God’s messages that best sees and exhibits Him (Matt. 5:8).

The prophet Jeremiah knew something of this truth when he said, “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it (that is God’s Word) in, and I cannot” (Jer. 20:9). Paul echoes the same truth in saying, “I believed, and so I spoke.” (2 Cor. 4:13). It is only when the heart is filled with living faith and burning zeal for the truth that the mouth will speak with true eloquent. This principle is behind the fact that “beggars are often eloquent”, A. Alexander expressed. For, “The most important point in true eloquence is to be absorbed in the subject so as to think of nothing else. He who understands and feels his subject and lets nature give the expression, possesses the eloquence of which I speak.”[4] In another place he adds, “To have the heart of the preacher duly impressed with the importance of what he delivers, is better than all rules, and will in great measure cover defects, or rather remove them. Nature teaches the proper tunes to those who have strong feelings much more effectually than any rules of rhetoric.”[5] No doubt the two disciples on the road to Emmaus had burning tongues because they had burning hearts (Lk. 24:31-35)!

How then can your heart be kindled with the truth you seek to preach? It must be admitted that this is primarily the gracious work of God’s Spirit. However, when the Spirit works, the preacher will seek “not only to cultivate piety generally,” but to prepare his heart “for every discourse” he is seeking to deliver. Unfortunately, many preachers fail in the due preparation of their own hearts before preaching.[6] One way to prepare one’s heart is by preaching every sermon to one’s own heart first. Without savoring and digesting the truth first, one cannot deliver it with power for others to taste it.[7] The heart (and the preaching) cannot be dull if the glory of God is manifest to it. “A pastor who is not manifestly glad in God does not glorify God… A bored and unenthusiastic tour guide in the Alps contradicts and dishonors the majesty of the mountains.”[8] If the heart is kindled with the majesty of God, the tongue will follow.

 Practically speaking, this might demand starting the preparation process one or two weeks before preaching the sermon to have enough time to study, digest and pray for your own heart with the truth you will preach. That’s why Keller advices preachers that whether or not they write their sermon, they ought to know it enough to deliver it from their heart not from their notes. In his own words he writes, “Whether your notes are before you or in your head, you must be free to learn from God and offer fresh insights even as you preach.”[9] Keller’s comment raises the question of the role of the Spirit in eloquence and the question of whether eloquence is a gift or art, to which we now turn.

Eloquence, Gift or Art?

“His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

(1 Cor. 15:10)

What Paul said of his ministry in general, can be applied in his preaching. It was God’s grace that made him work hard while offering himself unreservedly to God. Bavinck was quoted previously affirming that the greatest preachers were eloquent “not by their own practice, but by the divine gift… not by human calling, but by the power of divine right. Eloquence for them was not design but nature, a gift rather than art.”[10] However, he himself later adds, “still, eloquence is not a single gift; it is also an art.” Then he asks, “which talent that comes from above and recognizes its dependence should be able to scorn the means also given from above that continue its development? The notion that genius has nothing to do with work and diligence, and must rather patiently wait for inspiration, is wholly wrong.”[11] A. Alexander similarly argues that God uses the natural gifts that he gave and grant a further grace that built on what he gave by nature. However, he insists that “while grace built upon nature, it was, in the final analysis, not dependent on or restricted to nature.”[12] So, although we shall soon turn to some practical considerations on how to sharpen the natural gifts and how to use the means to continue develop eloquence, lets first ponder briefly on the role of the Spirit, or as some prefer to call, the unction.

The “unction is the facility of speech a man may experience in the act of preaching when the Holy Spirit empowers the message beyond the ordinary effect typically produced.”[13] This is what Paul describes as “the demonstration of the Spirit and power” (1 Cor. 2:4). Alexander’s son described his father’s awareness of the role of the Spirit. He writes,

“It is believed that some trepidation preceded every discourse which he delivered, as Luther reports concerning himself. Far more than is common, and beyond what he ever explicitly declared, he seems to have believed in special aids, elevations and illuminations, conferred on the preacher during his delivery of the message; such afflatus from the Spirit he was accustomed to distinguish from the personal graces of the preacher.”[14]

Martin Llyod Jones speaks of similar experience in his preaching in which the Spirit empowers giving clarity, ease, authority and joy. You can hear him exhilarate as he writes, “I like to put it like this—and I know of nothing on earth that is comparable to this feeling—that when this happens you have a feeling that you are not actually doing the preaching, you are looking on. You are looking on at yourself in amazement as this is happening.”[15] When the Spirit works, the preacher, no matter how much effort he has put in a sermon, will humbly confess with Paul, “though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”

This work of the Spirit in empowering sermon delivery can be summarized in the following: He gives spiritual freedom (in verbal expression) and sometimes restraint the tongue from saying things. He grants spiritual clarity while thinking and delivering the truth. He provides spiritual devotion so that the preacher would have sense of awe as he preaches Corm Deo. Furthermore, the Spirit gives the spiritual effect, the real transformation which all man’s natural abilities cannot produce.[16] The task of God honoring eloquent preaching is impossible task without the Spirit.

Who deserves the presence and the empowerment of the third person of the Godhead? We surely can do nothing to merit His blessing. “God doesn’t use people because they are gifted. He uses people (even preachers) because he is gracious… If we do believe (this), then we will pray – we will pray before we speak, and we will pray for others before they speak.”[17] Indeed, we can only ask humbly and earnestly and ask (and even teach) our audience to pray for this unction upon us as we bring God’s Word to them. It is said of Spurgeon that he often asked his congregations to pray for his preaching. He himself prayed “I believe in the Holy Ghost” while making his weekly pulpit ascent at the 5,000-seat London Metropolitan Tabernacle. It is said of Whitefield that he prayed out loud even in the middle of his preaching![18] The apostle Paul always mingled his teaching, preaching and writing with prayers for the Spirit’s work (cf. Eph. 1:15-23; 3:14-21). He never failed to ask the supplications of the saints, “that words may be given to me ]and who but the Spirit can be the giver of words[ in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly ]and who but the Spirit can be the giver of boldness[, as I ought to speak.” (Eph. 6:19-20; cf. Col. 5:3-4).

The Spirit that gives boldness and freedom, the Spirit that gives words to speak the mystery of Christ, is the same Spirit who grant practical wisdom and guidance for the development of God honoring practical skills and God honoring eloquence. We shall turn to some of these practical skills in the final part of this series.